Hey Steph,
For the
last several of months, I’ve been feeling particularly anxious, insecure, and
doubtful about life, myself, and faith, respectively. Fortunately, I’ve had
this happen before so I had a few tools up my sleeve that I had not had
previously. First: emotions are passing. I might feel 100% despondent or full
of fear, but 24 hours later I might be feeling pretty content. No one moment of
feeling equals reality. Second: family, friends, and words of wisdom are the
best means to travel from anxiety to peace, from insecurity to confidence, and
from doubt to faith. I’ve found that looking toward the next phone call home,
the next conversation with a neighbor, or the next study of scripture grants me
strength to traverse through periods between each interaction. Third: hope is
both a forward-looking and a backward-glancing power. Just as I can look
forward to strength in future interactions with family, friends, and wisdom, I
can also receive hope in remembering the peace of past interactions.
A few months ago, I visited my
friend Katherine in Seattle. Katherine and I had the opportunity to walk a few
miles of the city. For a good portion of that walk, we were behind a homeless
man smoking a cigarette butt. He breathed in the nicotine-laden air through the
smallest possible joint—his fingers had to be burning on the heat of the
centimeter-long cigarette. We were not nearly as interested in breathing that
same air, so we decided to pass him. As we did so, the man spotted a little bit
of treasure beside a sidewalk tree: a full half of a cigarette that someone had
ungratefully thrown to the ground. Our hobo bent over excitedly, picked it up,
stuck it to the end of the few remaining embers of his old cigarette butt, and
continued walking with a bit more spunk in his step. For the rest of the day,
Katherine and I were completely distracted by the cigarette butts of Seattle.
We’d interrupt each other’s conversation to point out a long, round cigarette
butt that would have surely made our smoker happy. I was never so aware of this
commodity that litters our streets, and I wished I could gather them up and
leave them for him to smoke peacefully throughout the night.
 |
| An example of a subpar but usable cigarette butt. (source) |
As unrelated as this may sound, I think hope is
sometimes like these cigarette butts. Like the hobo, I’ve found myself
anxiously searching for the next instance of peace, my next cigarette butt. As
I breathed in every ounce of hope possible from my last interaction, I’d use
all my energy looking for the next gift of hope. When you lack the financial
means to buy your own carton of cigarettes, your constant anxiety is finding
the next cigarette. Your life doesn’t have much more complexity and joy than
just merely surviving, eyes to gutter, steps in anxious journey toward your
next smoky inhale. So it has been with me and hope. Without faith that I will continue
to receive hope in the future, my life was entirely consumed in the one act of
emotional survival. There were no other joys than taking another step.
See, after several weeks living
from one peaceful moment to the next, I started to get smart. There was no
possible way to know absolutely that there would be more moments of hope in my
life, but history showed that at the end of hope-filled fumes, there would be
another instance that would grant me peace.
The hobo had no financial ability to stop his anxious search for
cigarette butts, but I did have emotional means to stop my nervous search for
hope: Faith was and is my emotional capital. As I have chosen to believe and have faith
in future hope-filled interactions with Deity, I’ve noticed that I’ve worried
less about finding my next emotional fix. My stamina of peace has grown
stronger and longer. I’ve become more sure that I would feel peaceful again,
and that I was ok to not constantly have an experience-induced, hope cigarette
to my mouth. I was no longer addicted to living from one moment to another. I
could walk with head up, away from the cigarette-strewn gutter, and with a stride
confident in the hope of tomorrow. I gained peace in life, confidence in
myself, and faith in God. While I’m sure I will again fill downcast and
nervously grasp on to singular moments of peace, I’ve learned that the choice
of faith is actually a stronger, more constant antidote to fear. We cannot
always live in strong moments of peace because if there was only ever peace, we
would have no need to gain strength through choosing to walk by faith on unsure
paths. We would be weak creatures instead of strong people imbued with the
power of agency. The choice of faith provides us with the means to act and not
be acted upon.
While
in our darkest hours, the blessing of peaceful and hopeful moments are
invaluable and make possible what seems impossible, but the miracle wrought by
faith is even more precious. Faith doesn’t just help us survive but helps us
grow. Faith makes us capable. The steadiness of faith in God allows us to stop
clinging tightly to the survival of our own lives and look outward in making
ourselves more.
To choosing faith,
Amanda Kae
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